70 HUMBOLDT. [May 12, 1856. 



ranee of the locality, with the want of hypsometrical measurements, 

 led to the sad results of Lieut. Strain's courageous expedition. 



The great object to be accomplished is, in my opinion, a canal 

 uniting the two oceans without locks or tunnels. When the plans and 

 sections can be submitted to the public, a free and open discussion will 

 elicit the advantages and disadvantages of each locality ; and the 

 execution of this important work, which interests the civilised nations 

 of the two continents, should be entrusted to engineers who have suc- 

 cessfully constructed similar works. The Junction Company will find 

 supporters among those governments and citizens, who, yielding to noble 

 feelings, will take pride in the idea of having contributed to a work 

 worthy of the progress of intellect in the 19th century. This opinion I 

 liave expressed with warmth for more than fifty years. I have laboured, 

 without ceasing, to disseminate the geographical views which tend 

 to prove the possibility of commercial communications, whether by 

 canals, with or without locks, either simple or coupled with inclines ; 

 or by means of railroads, uniting coasts or rivers having an opposite 

 course. 



Through General Bolivar, I obtained the exact geodetic levelling of 

 the Isthmus of Panama. I was the first to make known, in my Mexican 

 Atlas, the course of the two rivers Huasacoalco and Chimalapa, accord- 

 ing to documents found in the archives of the viceroyalty of Mexico. 

 I indicated the proximity of the almost unknown port of Cupica to the 

 sources of the Napipi and the waters of the Atrato, as well as the exist- 

 ence, ignored in Europe, of a canal of very small dimensions, con- 

 structed in 1788, under the directions of a monk, curate of Novita, by 

 the Indians of his parish, for connecting the waters of the Raspadura, 

 an affluent of the Quito, with the waters of the San Juan de Chiram- 

 bira. I think there is nothing more likely to obstruct the extension of 

 commerce and the freedom of international relations, than to create a 

 distaste for any further investigation, by declaring, in an absolute and 

 imperative manner, that all hope of an oceanic canal ought now to be 

 abandoned. 



I have described already in my * Essai Politique de la Nouvelle 

 Espagne ' * the immense operation of cutting through mountains the 

 open canal, called the Desague of Huehuetoca, which was executed 

 by the Spanish government at the commencement of the 17th century ; 

 and I have now too much faith in the power of the resources offered by 

 modern civilisation, to be discouraged. 



I am indebted to Colonel Codazzi, and to the affectionate kindness of 

 the Minister of the Interior at Bogota, M. Pastor Ospina, for im- 

 portant communications which remind me that the route from Cupica 



♦ See the last edition, vol. i., pages 202-248, and vol. ii., pages 95-145. 



